


Birthday

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: Adam has a present for Detective on her birthday.
Relationships: Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Adam du Mortain
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Birthday

The room is fragrant when she wakes. 

Floral. 

She turns her head across the white bedsheets and comes face to face with a vase of peach roses on her bedside table. 

She blinks once, twice, tries to awaken, tips her head to the side and looks at the way the golden sunlight skims through the blind and pools perfectly on their petals. 

They weren’t there the night before. 

She imagines him padding in soundlessly to place them next to her. Shivers lightly at the thought of him standing so close to her bed. 

Did he stop to watch her sleeping, she wonders. 

Did he linger.

It’s what she would’ve done. 

Another tingle slides over her skin. 

She shakes off the thought with a yawn and looks at the card in the flowers. 

> _Anna,_
> 
> _Happy birthday._
> 
> _With love, Mum_

A bright smile lights her face at the thought of Rebecca. 

No matter how long it’s been, she sends her favourite roses every birthday. 

She stretches up, curling her spine into the most satisfying arch as she reaches towards the sunlit ceiling. 

Her birthday. 

She gazes out the window for a moment. 

This is the strangest year she’s had in all of her 28...now 29 years of existence. 

All compounded by him. 

She hears the smallest tinkle of glass coming from her kitchen. 

Even if he remained silent, she’d still know he was there. He might have hypersenses but she has something stronger. 

Instinct. 

She always feels him. Even when he’s not close, she can sense him. 

It’s all for her protection. Purely professional. With the trappers so active, she needs a chaperone. One of Unit Bravo nearby at all times. 

Funny how it’s always him at night. 

Funnier still that he’s the one who sets the schedule.

She hears another small clatter. 

He’s usually silent. Barely present. As barely present as his huge frame can be. 

She stands slowly, feeling the gravity pull her soles to the floor. A way of grounding herself before she sees him and her centre falls askew once more. 

She wonders why she can’t let go. The dance they do. The up down side to side waltz that never stills, but only leaves her dizzy. 

What will it take for her to finally step out of the ballroom. 

There’s a sharp clatter and she swears she hears him curse. 

She imagines his jaw tighten in frustration. 

A small smile lights her face. 

She’s ready to dance. 

He picks up the small pieces of porcelain and places them to one side. 

The cup has broken neatly into three, and the parallels with the current state of his heart would alarm him if he allowed himself the sardony. 

Instead he picks up the larger of the three fragments and looks at the neat writing on the side. 

“Class of ‘12”

She is so young, so new. A thought that simultaneously excites and enrages him. 

She’s human. Of course she is young. 

She’s human. 

The simple truth that he comes back to over and over again. 

How vulnerable that makes her. How raw and soft. 

His need to protect her sears through his blood.

It does other things too, things so illogical that he fights them with every breath. 

Her slow sleeping heartbeat comes into his consciousness again, louder and closer and he realises that he will need to begin the fight again. 

Allowing himself a small luxury, he presses his eyes shut and listens to the rhythm. And then he recalibrates. 

The second his eyes open, they are hard again. 

Hastily, he sets the china aside and looks at his palm, thankful that the heavy gash is already healed. If he were human she might tend to it, hold his hand in the softness of hers and soothe the streams of blood. 

He brushes away the thought. 

Her footfall gentle and bare on the wooden flooring hammers away.

When she emerges from her bedroom he knows his preparations were entirely ineffectual. 

She is beautiful. 

Her long blonde hair a wavy mess, her outline swimming in a long white t-shirt that drapes over one shoulder leaving the other bare. With one hand she rubs her eyes softly and stifles a yawn. 

His breath catches. 

He straightens quickly, composing himself. 

He has seen her like this a hundred times since he…since _Unit Bravo_ began staying close to her for protection. But she looks more radiant today. More perfect. 

Which makes sense, he reminds himself. It is her day. 

“Good morning, Detective.” 

His voice is there, somewhere beneath the sheen of professionalism he coats it in. 

“Hi.”

Her eyes flit over him, the corners of her mouth cocked ready to smile when she turns to the sink and spots the shattered remnants of her cup. 

“I made you tea.”

He gestures towards a red mug she hasn’t seen in months. 

“Thanks.” 

The smile she was resisting breaks through when she realises he’s noticed that she drinks tea first thing before coffee. 

But then, when it comes to her, he notices everything. 

It’s enough to make the hope she tries so hard to bury simmer up to her throat and so she coughs gently, taking her gaze off the cup and placing it on him. 

“When did the flowers arrive?” she asks casually, desperate to change her line of thought. 

“About an hour ago. I hope I did not wake you.”

“Not at all.” 

She brings the amber liquid to her lips and takes a small sip, the warmth a soothing balm absolving every tension. Her eyes dart to him over the rim of the cup. 

For a second she swears she sees him swallow hard, jade eyes utterly glassy and transfixed. But he looks to the window with an almost imperceptible shake of the head leaving her to cast a glance over him. 

Usually her eyes would linger somewhere along the lines of his chest. She’d follow the outline of his shirt as it tugged along the muscles of his shoulder. But this time her eyes fall to the arm he’s swept behind his back. 

He’s holding something. 

He sees her blue eyes move down. 

Feels her heart beat just a touch faster.

Hesitating, a soft whisper of desperation keeps him silent as he wonders if he can still back out. Her pupils dilate in response and he knows the answer straight away. 

Anything to make her heart move faster. To make the blood that keeps her alive stirring ferociously. 

He sighs softly and pulls the package to his chest. 

“This is…it is nothing. The others have things at the warehouse for you.”

She bites her lip. He observes the way a faint blush is creeping onto her cheeks and wonders if the warmth he feels is betraying him. 

“Is the nothing for me?” She gestures at the parcel with only the trace of a smirk. 

“Yes. Happy birthday.” Hands it over. 

The parcel is wrapped in gold paper neatly. She thinks he might’ve wrapped it, blinks up at him with a small smile and realises straight away that he can’t have done. 

She unfurls the paper to soft cloth. A grey t-shirt. Mens. She runs her hand over it, its gentle edges slide through her hands with comfortable ease and amidst the thundering realisation, she gasps. 

He feels it all. Her excitement as she opens it in the escalation of her already increasing heartbeat. The way she runs her hands over the garment, her heart rate slowing in confusion, the slight frown of concentration, a little dent in her brow and then the gasp when she realises. The explosion of her pulse. 

Her glittering eyes meet his. 

“Is this…from when I…?”

She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. 

_Shot you._

Instead she runs her hand through the hole that has been carefully stitched up. It looks stylish. A work of high fashion the way the bullet hole has been hardened with plastic. 

She thinks about the first time she met him. Mental sketches of the warehouse drift across her mind from a faraway time. She’d never shot anyone before. That it was him. Would become _him_. 

His voice is gentle, careful, rousing, but she’s still lost. 

“I had it repaired. I thought you might enjoy the reminder. You sleep in t-shirts.” 

He controls his voice, says it like it’s a fact and tries to push the emotion far away. 

“It has my scent on it, it will help disguise you and keep you safe when you are sleeping.” 

Internally he falters but he hopes he has convinced her. This is purely practical. 

She hears his words distant in the ether but the burn from the fabric is overwhelming.

_This is his._

He wore it when they met. A relic of history, she holds it close to her, breathing him in silently.

A pang of sadness drifts by when she remembers that this is as close as she can get to sleeping next to him. 

She tries to beat back the thought, to batten the hatch but as she looks up to him it glimmers in her iris. 

His first thought is she dislikes the gift. 

And why shouldn’t she. It’s his old t-shirt. Why would she want that, apart from for sentimental reasons, sentiments that are just his own.

“As I said, it is nothing. You do not have to keep it.”

“It’s perfect.” Her voice catches and that’s all she can manage. “Thank you.”

The air is thick between them, suddenly. She should be used to this by now, again that dance they do. 

She tucks the shirt in its golden wrapper under her arm and softly moves to the kitchen counter, right by Adam, to reach for a small box. 

It happens so quickly he isn’t prepared. She leans over towards him and opens the cupboard, her hand brushing his bare arm, the warmth sending diffuse sparks all over him. Entirely involuntarily, he leans in to the touch but it’s gone. 

His disappointment fades quickly into surprise as she strikes a match against its cardboard case, the sharp noise rousing him.

“What are you doing?”

She points to the small chocolate cake on the counter. 

“Tina bought me a cupcake last night. She seems to think I need to make a birthday wish.”

They had so much fun picking it out at Haley’s. One single cupcake. The birthday cupcake. They went through the different sprinkle and frosting options like picking a cake at a five year old’s party. Banana or marshmallow, coconut or hazelnut. A small smirk curves her mouth when she remembers the joke Tina made.

_“At this point, you’re gonna need more than a birthday wish to get that guy into bed.”_

The light scent of burnt wood mingles with vanilla and chocolate. 

She closes her eyes.

Remembers Tina’s words. Rebecca’s. Adam’s. Her own. 

And she recites her wish silently like all the birthdays before. A small annual prayer. Spills out word after word. Blows gently. 

As she opens her eyes she feels him straight away.

Something has changed, his proximity for starters. 

Adam is right beside her. 

When she stands up straight they’re so close she feels his heart race through the thin fabric of his shirt. Makes a nice change, she thinks, to not be the only one. 

Careful not to fracture the moment, she tries to meet his gaze gently, easing herself into the longing she knows she’ll find. But it’s no use. 

Their eyes meet and they are back there. Locked in the intensity. 

“What did you wish for?” His voice is a soft whisper. 

They’re so close, she has to remember to breathe. 

“If I tell you, it won’t come true,” she replies in the same low whisper.

Holding his gaze, she dips her finger into the dark frosting of the cake and lifts it to her lips. He watches it through the periphery, never losing sight of any part of her. 

The light edge of her finger falls on his lips as she brings it to her own. 

He purses his mouth, instinctively catching the sweetness on his tongue. 

It’s saccharine and dark and completely overwhelming. But a part of his brain, the same that’s set his heart thundering, tells him that it’s same as that on her mouth. 

For this moment he feels their lips joined through sweetness, even though they cannot be. And then he starts to think of what he shouldn’t. 

He wonders what her lips taste like. 

He blinks and tries to shake away the thought. Realises too late that she’s already stepped away. 

“Anna?”

She stops at the door and turns to him, the scent from the shirt she’s holding surrounding her. 

“I hope you receive what you have wished for.”

His voice is so soft, she memorises the tone. 

Then looks down at the shirt in her hand, and back up at him with a smile. 

“I hope so too.”

He watches her turn and walk back into her room. 

The air is charged with a thousand volts. 

The beat of her heart rings loudly through the wall. 

Adam’s no mind-reader. Even being a vampire doesn’t make him privy to delicate human thought. He is glad for that. 

But despite himself, ignoring centuries of hard-won wisdom, right now he is sure that he’s wishing for exactly the same thing as her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> This is my first TWC fic so any feedback is very welcome :)
> 
> \- Ruby
> 
> @starrystarrytrouble on Tumblr


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